New customers are the lifeblood of small and medium-sized companies but staggeringly nearly half don’t know how to market themselves effectively.
The Barclays Local Business Survey, launched with The Times earlier this year, revealed that 44 per cent of the survey’s 3,675 respondents said marketing was the skill most lacking in their business.
And that can cause a major problem for SMEs struggling to survive and claw their way out of the recession. So where do they turn for cost-effective help to get themselves noticed by the widest possible audience?
Our approach at Bridge PR goes beyond the traditional realms of public relations, using the most sophisticated tools to help clients maximise their potential. As is often the case, keeping up with, and keeping on top of technology achieves the best results.
Digital marketing is emerging as an increasingly important tool across a range of industry sectors, with the internet opening up host of opportunities for business owners to access wider markets. Bridge PR is leading the way in helping clients nurture social media and digital marketing to get noticed.
With our expertise and as an established member of Business Link, we are ideally placed to provide information on funding opportunities available to companies to market themselves better in the digital world.
Business Link’s Director Development Programme (DDP) is awarding £500 to firms with five or more employees (but it’s up to a total of £1500 if you put in £500) and we are providing PR and Social Media courses and strategic plans for directors to develop their businesses.
Through our courses, we are helping even the smallest companies embrace the internet and tap into new opportunities.
With more than 70 per cent of the UK population now online and spending an average of 33 hours a month surfing the internet, the opportunities for business are clear and Bridge PR is ideally placed to help SMEs seize them and emerge stronger from the recession.
Embracing new ways of marketing yourself is often the key to developing your business and we have established ourselves in helping clients succeed in the digital age.
For the last six months we have been helping client K3 Business Technology deliver its hugely successful viral marketing campaign called ‘The Factory’.
Since February, online viewers have followed the exploits of bungling boss David and his epic nationwide tour of SYSPRO customers to find the perfect ERP system.
Bridge PR has been promoting the innovative campaign through both traditional and online PR channels to maximise K3’s exposure to the widest market possible. ‘The Factory’ has introduced a fun element into the serious message of how businesses can use SYSPRO ERP to operate more efficiently.
By combining traditional and online PR, we’ve helped ‘The Factory’ become a runaway hit with online viewers. It’s been a hugely satisfying project to be involved with and fine tuned our skills in using social media and digital marketing techniques to help our clients reach the biggest possible audience.
The market has been changing rapidly with digital media leaving PR and marketing communications in its wake. Our experience of working with K3 has put us in the driving seat to help our clients use the latest tools to maximise business opportunities and position Bridge as a leading provider of digital media solutions.
Episodes of The Factory series can be found at: http://www.k3scs.com/thefactory
Bridge PR is well estbalished with Business Link and at the forefront of providing information on funding opportunities for the many companies that we know.
The latest fund is the Director Development Programme (DDP) which is awarding £500 to firms with five or more employees. We are currently providing PR and Social Media courses and strategic plans for directors to evolve and debelop their businesses.
If you would like to know more about taking advantage of DDP funding, please contact Gary Lillistone or Denise Taylor
We are delighted that Rebecca Dunn-Morgan has joined our team as Senior Administrator. Rebecca or Reb has come from the highly demanding luxury hotel industry and will put her skills to work on improving our procedures for quality controlling the issuing of press releases to a wide range of press and media.
One of her major tasks will be to look after the customising, approval and distribution of press releases announcing each new Good Garage Scheme new member to their local press. The Good Garage Scheme takes on some 55 new member garages every month and it is our job to ensure they are promoted to their local customers.
Reb will also play a major part in our activities to promote clients through new media outlets such as Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Linked In etc.
At the end of June beginning of July, Bridge PR moved into new offices as part of our expansion programme, and we’re now just about settled in. As well as having lots more space to employ more staff, we have also changed our IT and telephone systems, bringing us right into the 21st century with cloud computing. In brief, all our data is now offsite, and our communications work through VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol). So far so good, and central and remote access to all our data has proved a real boon for our business.
Our new address and contact details are:
Bridge PR Limited
Faraday House
Electric Wharf
Coventry
CV1 4JF
Tel: 024 7652 0025
One of the most effective ways of adding strength to a press release is to look at a national news story that relates to a product or service you are looking to promote.
This is known as ‘piggybacking’ and will very often beef up your own press release and make it more attractive to journalists in the trade sector and give it that added edge in gaining press coverage.
When researching, writing and issuing press releases we PRs are constantly looking for an edge to make the release look as attractive as possible. We do this by thinking of a good news angle, making it relevant to the readership and writing it in a style that can be easily edited by a newspaper or magazine.
As an example, we work for a local Coventry company that produces an air conditioner treatment to get rid of fungi and nasty smells from vehicle air con systems. We have thought of just about every angle to push the treatment and then we spot a story about German scientists who have discovered motorists are healthier if they use their vehicle’s air con systems, rather than breath in polluted air from outside.
This gave us the edge we needed to draft a release covering the scientist’s findings and the necessity to keep air con systems in tip top condition using my client’s treatment. job done!
A visit to Boss Design proved to be anything but a pain in the back for David in the next episode of The Factory.
‘The Chair Man’ is the fourth instalment of this popular viral marketing campaign with David continuing his quest for the perfect ERP. In the episode, which can be found at http://www.k3scs.com/thefactory, he goes behind the scenes at the award-winning leading manufacturer of high quality corporate seating for offices.
Boss Design has earned a reputation for producing quality products that exceed current legislation requirements. They are ergonomically engineered to help prevent back pain for people who have to sit in the same position for a long period of time. All of its products undergo rigorous posture and comfort testing.
The company integrated K3’s SYSPRO system after recognising the need to raise the standards of its operational and manufacturing practices to the level of its product offering. It has also helped the company earn the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for Sustainable Development.
Virginia Seaward, Boss Group’s Head of Operations, said: “Without SYSPRO we never would have coped and it has played a pivotal role in helping Boss Design being recognised with the Queen’s Award for Enterprise.”
In ‘The Chair Man’, David takes a factory tour to learn how SYSPRO works, while taking the opportunity to sprawl on some of Boss Design’s colourful office creations and make quips about ‘cutting edge’ equipment on the factory floor. David discovers how Boss Design has radically overhauled its operations and managed an 18 per cent year-on-year growth while improving delivery and reducing costs and inventory.
The Factory campaign again succeeds in keeping viewers entertained with a fun and visual approach to a serious topic about the benefits of K3’s ERP solutions.
Virginia added: “We saw a lot of software packages and enjoyed SYSPRO. We liked the fact that we could bespoke it to what our business needed which a lot of systems couldn’t do. We can actually get it to run the factory. We needed to know what our clients wanted, when they needed it and how they wanted it and SYSPRO does all of that..”
The Factory viral marketing campaign keeps going from strength to strength, and in the latest episode, Sticky Business, David goes behind the scenes at Power Adhesives, Europe’s leading hotmelt adhesive specialists, and its sister company, Packaging Aids.
With a James Bond theme, and armed with a glue gun and TECBOND, David is “licensed to seal”. Of course, every sticky pun about glue is used, as David tours another factor in search of the perfect ERP solution.
Viral marketing and PR can be an effective way of raising the profile of a business and its products, but it has to be done well, and at Bridge, we believe that K3 has achieved this.
Today is another special day in the life of The Factory. It marks the launch of episode 2 of this light-hearted, but surprisingly funny mini-series that follows the exploits of the hapless and likeable David and Gareth (who you will recognise from a look-alike confident, but inept office manager in Slough, and his side-kick). They are searching for the perfect ERP solution which kicked off with an introductory episode released in February 2009. So successful was the first episode that the follow on video has become a “must view”. In reality, David is a factory boss who is out of touch with modern business systems of today, and he is under pressure to seek out companies who are using ERPs to give their businesses a real edge. His first stop is a company called Astute Electronics, one of the world’s leading suppliers of fully tested and warranted electronic components. So what, you might ask. Electronics can be a dull subject for most of us, and another press release about a business solution might not rock everyone’s boat. This is where The Factory comes into its own. Each episode is so well done and captures the expressions of David’s bemusement in the world of commerce. Here at Bridge we are thoroughly enjoying supporting this viral marketing campaign through online and traditional PR, and we look forward to each episode with bated breath, and much anticipation. You can follow The Factory at www.k3scs.com/thefactory. You will have to register to gain access to the full version of each episode, but it’s worth doing. And of course, not forgetting the plug for Bridge – if you want help with your online or print-based PR, then we’re the experts. Just pick up the phone, or email us. 024 7655 3333 / garyl@bridgepr.co.uk
Bridge PR has been helping K3 Business Technology Group to launch their hilarious viral marketing campaign: The Factory. This is a tongue-in-cheek, humorous approach to raising awarness of K3’s ERP business solutions.
There is a steadily growing move towards using Web 2.0 technologies, and companies are now starting to wake up to the myriad opportunities this offers for reaching much wider audiences. The Factory is a high quality, well-produced series of short films which looks at a “not-so-typical” company boss as he visits a selection of companies who use SYSPRO ERP.
The Factory campaign kicks off with a meeting, which serves as an introduction to the rest of the series. Anyone who sees the first episode will, I’m sure, want to follow what happens. Take a look and see what you think, and if you like the first episode then please feel free to pass the link on to your friends and colleagues:
Do let us have your comments, and if you are interested in learning more about how we can help your companies Web 2.0 PR and marketing, then get in touch with us.
Posted by bridgepr 
Posted by bridgepr 
Posted by bridgepr 
‘The Chair Man’ is the fourth instalment of this popular viral marketing campaign with David continuing his quest for the perfect ERP. In the episode, which can be found at 
Today is another special day in the life of The Factory. It marks the launch of episode 2 of this light-hearted, but surprisingly funny mini-series that follows the exploits of the hapless and likeable David and Gareth (who you will recognise from a look-alike confident, but inept office manager in Slough, and his side-kick). They are searching for the perfect ERP solution which kicked off with an introductory episode released in February 2009. So successful was the first episode that the follow on video has become a “must view”. In reality, David is a factory boss who is out of touch with modern business systems of today, and he is under pressure to seek out companies who are using ERPs to give their businesses a real edge. His first stop is a company called Astute Electronics, one of the world’s leading suppliers of fully tested and warranted electronic components. So what, you might ask. Electronics can be a dull subject for most of us, and another press release about a business solution might not rock everyone’s boat. This is where The Factory comes into its own. Each episode is so well done and captures the expressions of David’s bemusement in the world of commerce. Here at Bridge we are thoroughly enjoying supporting this viral marketing campaign through online and traditional PR, and we look forward to each episode with bated breath, and much anticipation. You can follow The Factory at www.k3scs.com/thefactory. You will have to register to gain access to the full version of each episode, but it’s worth doing. And of course, not forgetting the plug for Bridge – if you want help with your online or print-based PR, then we’re the experts. Just pick up the phone, or email us. 024 7655 3333 / garyl@bridgepr.co.uk